Comedy, mime, masks, juggling and storytelling, me oh my!

Doug Berky, a physical theater performer using comedy, mime, masks, juggling and storytelling, will be the featured entertainer for the Celebration of the Young Child at 10 a.m. Friday, April 19, at the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge.

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Oakridger - Oak Ridge, TN

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Posted Apr. 8, 2013 at 5:47 PM
Updated Apr 8, 2013 at 5:49 PM

Posted Apr. 8, 2013 at 5:47 PM
Updated Apr 8, 2013 at 5:49 PM

Oak Ridge,Tenn.

Doug Berky, a physical theater performer using comedy, mime, masks, juggling and storytelling, will be the featured entertainer for the Celebration of the Young Child at 10 a.m. Friday, April 19, at the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge.

Young children and their families are invited to join in the celebration from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. A puppet show on safety, make-and-take crafts, a kids’ movement class, more puppets and storytelling, a book fair and health and nutrition activities will take place throughout the celebration.

The Children’s Museum exhibits will all be open to visitors during the celebration. Admission to the museum and celebration is $5, with scholarships available upon request.

Berky creates beautiful handmade masks that he incorporates into his performances. His performances reflect styles of commedia dell’arte, vaudeville, mask and mime theater. He says he has been influenced by such performers as Charlie Chaplin, Carol Burnette and Marcel Marceau.

He has been described as a rare performer with the ability to capture the attention of everyone in an audience as soon as he opens his mouth. Berky has designed and constructed theatrical masks for high school, college, and professional productions, theater schools, theater companies, and individual performers on stage and television since the early 1980s.

The performing artist has appeared in the award-winning NBC children’s television series, “See-Saw,” in Portland, Maine, and in four television specials for Swedish National Television. He has performed and taught throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe in schools, colleges and festivals.

Berky has been the featured performer at events as diverse as The Eugene O’Neill Theater Cabaret Symposium and a national gathering of the National Council of Churches. Doug has performed and taught as Artist-In-Residence at numerous schools and colleges including schools for the deaf, The Commedia School in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Furman University in Greenville, S.C.

He began his professional training at Dell’Arte School of Mime and Comedy in Blue Lake, Calif. He toured for eight years with established companies such as The Montanaro Mime Theatre in Maine, The Two Penny Circus in Vermont, and Sunshine Too, the touring theatre of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, N.Y.

Sponsors of the Celebration include the Pilot Club of Oak Ridge, Anderson County Health Department, Knoxville Area Model Railroaders, Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge and Covenant Health, National Fitness Center, Smokies Baseball, and East Tennessee Children’s Hospital.

The Celebration of the Young Child is funded under an agreement with the State of Tennessee, the Tennessee Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.

As part of a special Week of the Young Child celebrated in April across the country, the Children’s Museum is honoring young children and all those who make a difference in children’s lives with its special celebration. The Week of the Young Child, sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young, is April 14 to 20. The week, with the theme “Early Years Are Learning Years,” provides an opportunity for early childhood programs across the country to hold activities to bring awareness to the needs of young children.